About Lisa

I grew up in the 60s and 70s when aspiring to be a homemaker was still a perfectly acceptable thing for a little girl to do. My mother, aka Grandma Jo, taught my big sister and me how to cook and bake at a fairly early age. My parents entertained quite a bit and my mother prepared all the food herself. I was not only expected to help but I actually loved doing it.

I eventually became a computer geek instead of a homemaker but I never lost my love of cooking.

My single years didn’t produce much but nearly 25 years of married life has resulted in a solid knack for how to throw a meal together. My mother claims she can’t cook anything without a recipe. She is amazed at how I can make up recipes just by looking at what’s in my pantry. I can’t believe after all her years of cooking she still needs recipes. Perhaps I just never cared as much about the possibility of failing.

My mother’s early teachings were also the driving force behind my desire to make everything from scratch. When I was growing up, canned vegetables were the primary convenience foods we had available. Everything else was fresh (ahem… we won’t talk about the pesticides they used — that’s for another day).

I believe that in our current day it’s even more important for people to cook fresh meals rather than purchase pre-made freezer foods and packaged goods. This does not mean long hours in the kitchen every night after work. I certainly don’t have any more time than anybody else to cook these days. But through years of trial and error I’ve learned to make healthy and balanced meals mostly from fresh nutritious ingredients in about 30 minutes, and sometimes much less.